Clarkson Wright & Jakes is delighted to announce that it has promoted four of its staff...
Chris Wood is one of the excellent magicians that will be entertaining guests at the Magpie Dance 30th Anniversary Charity Dinner being held at The Warren on Thursday July 9th.
As a full time professional magician and by the nature of my work, no day is particularly typical. In fact success for specialist close-up magicians like me comes from working in a variety of areas.
I can have seven different days in any given week; from performing at trade shows, weddings, family parties and corporate events to giving lectures, or public shows - I even give lessons to aspiring and improving magicians!
In addition, I do voluntary work for The Magic Circle of which I was recently the Secretary. This includes running and organising some of their public shows as well as being a director on the board of the charity, “The Centre for Magic Arts” whose aim is to preserve and promote the heritage of Magic as a performing art.
My day may include any of the following:
- Admin and finances. I track all income and successful marketing and review monthly targets against previous years. This is show business; if you want to eat, you need to have a decent head for this. Agents that adopt you, take care of bookings and develop your career are not common nowadays. It is more that they simply pass work onto you.
- Marketing, including updating social media and arranging posters/flyers and much more.
- Answering queries and enquiries. Responses need to be as quick as possible; otherwise you are likely to lose work!
- Arranging performers for my shows. This requires constant juggling to balance who is available as well as their contrasting styles and routines.
- Practice and studying. If you don’t like practicing, magic is the wrong profession. I practice every day, for at least an hour, sometimes 4 or 5 depending on how busy I am. I am always evaluating new material and routines, 90% of which I reject, however I constantly refine and improve my repertoire and take a lot of pride in it. This can actually be a very creative time and I enjoy the discipline it requires.
- Travel. This can be a large part of your day. Sometimes a one hour engagement can take five or six hours out of your day and it usually takes place in the evening.
- Performance. The part the public sees is really the culmination of all the hidden work that precedes it. Of course this is the part that I most enjoy. I love entertaining and set out to make sure that everyone has a good time. Occasionally some engagements are difficult but it’s rare that they aren’t enjoyable. Laughter, applause, amazement… what’s not to like? You have to generate energy and atmosphere in a room and you can only do that through giving out energy yourself. It’s tiring, but in a very satisfying way.
Of all my work I am most proud of “The Close-Up Show”. I devised the format for the Magic Circle five years ago and we’ve been selling out ever since. I have managed to expand the show to multiple local theatres over the past three years.